Paper short abstract:

The present study examines Indian diaspora in Japan, emphasizing its transnational nature and focusing on cross-cultural contacts of the members of Indian communities with the mainstream society.

Paper long abstract:

Migrants recently gained significant attention from ordinary people and academics in Japan. The present study examines Indian diaspora in Japan, emphasizing its transnational nature and focusing on cross-cultural contacts of the members of Indian communities with the mainstream society. The paper is based on the interview data and other materials collected during one-year fieldwork, carried out in Japan in 2012-13 and short-term visits to Japan in 2017 and 2019 years. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice, there were around 38,000 Indians registered in Japan in 2019, and their number has not changed significantly for the past years. Indian diaspora is quite diverse. There are permanent residents (some of them are descendants of Indian entrepreneurs who came in Japan in the second half of the 19th and first half of 20th century and their dependents). About half of Indians in Japan are skilled workers, engaged in IT, catering and hotel business. These different Indian communities mostly do not intersect. Many Indians are coming in Japan as contract workers and do not intend to stay long. However, many of them may stay longer than they initially planned and continue living in transnational space, shuttling back and forth between two or even more countries. This can last for a few years, decades and even through generations. Internet and SNS facilitate this process. Although the number of Indians in Japan is not large, they have become quite visible in closed Japanese society, making some impact on its globalization by creating sites of Indian culture such as restaurants, Indian towns, international schools, Indian art clubs and Indian temples, which are to be examined in the paper.